Volume 1 Samples

Creation: The Wise Man and the Student

This is the story of a wise man from a village far away, schooled in the way of the prophetﷺ and one of those who followed his blessed ways, and a young Muslim boy from the city, hungry for knowledge.  This chance meeting was to change their lives forever…

The wise man stood in the tiny high-rise apartment and smiled at his companion. “You really enjoy living in a place with so many people, all rushing to nowhere?”

His companion smiled back. “As long as I know where I’m going none of them can take me off my path,” was his reply.  The wise man was from a village where the pace was slow, and much thought was put into everything said and done.  He agreed to visit his friend in the city and felt a richness to his decision the minute he stepped on the plane.

One needed to step out of himself to know himself better.

“Well,” the companion said, “I have to go to work for a while.  How would you like to pass the time?”

The wise man thought for a moment and then said, “Among majestic trees!”

The companion laughed and said, “I know just the place.”

No more than fifteen minutes later, the wise man found himself in a grove of stately trees in the city park.  He marveled at the glut of humanity moving past him, some running, some on skates, others chatting as they walked, totally unaware of the towering green creations of Allah they were passing by.  He was grateful at that moment to have the inner peace of willing submission.  Just then a sight filled his eyes that was out of character for the chaos of this supposed place of respite. A young boy, maybe ten or twelve, sitting on a park bench some ways away with a very large book on his lap. The wise man watched as the boy read a page, following the words with his finger.  He would stop and look up to the sky with a quizzical look on his face and then tip his head down again to devour the next page.  The wise man felt drawn to him.  It was not just the Islamic headgear perched on the head of one so young, but the droplet of quiet that seemed to surround him in the midst of noise and clamor.  The young boy was swinging his feet rhythmically back and forth underneath him, as his still-growing legs did not reach the ground. He seemed so small in the vast universe, but with a gentle dignity enfolding him.

The wise man walked over to him and said, “As Salamu Alaikum. May I sit down?”

The boy looked up, getting ready to rebuff the stranger as his parents had taught him, but the words got caught in his throat.  He could see right away that this man was different.  He could feel it. 

“Wa Alaikum Salam.  Yes, please,” was his reply.

They sat quietly for a moment, enjoying the connection, young to old, that only the depth of similar beliefs could bring.

“What are you studying so intently?” the wise man asked.

“Science,” was the quick reply, “actually, the Big Bang theory.”

“You seem to have some questions.  Perhaps we could find the answers together.”

“Really?” the boy asked.

“Really,” was the assured reply.

“Well,” the boy began, “do we as Muslims believe in the Big Bang?”

The wise man smiled at the monumental scope of the question. “Let’s break down what your book says, piece by piece and see.  Begin at the beginning…”

The boy leafed back a few pages and began reading, “The four forces that rule the universe likely started by being fused together due to extreme temperature and density, and at the moment of explosion if there had been a decrease in the expansion rate one second afterward by only one part in one hundred thousand millionth million, there would be no universe.”

“Subhan Allah,” was the wise man’s reply, “the Glory of God!”

“What does our Qur’an say about this?” the boy looked eagerly at his bench mate.

The wise man returned the look and simply said, “In surah 36 ayah 81 God says, “Is not He who created the heavens and the earth able to create the likes of them.  Yes, and He is the knowing Creator. His command is only when He intends a thing that He says to it, “Be,” and it is.”

The boy looked away thoughtfully and then began to read again, “After the Big Bang the gases were too hot and became ionized causing them to be opaque.  What does opaque mean?”

“Like the color of smoke,” the wise man said, “non-transparent.  That, too, is spoken about in the Qur’an.  Surah 41 ayah 11 says, “Then He directed Himself to the heaven while it was smoke and said to it and to the earth, “Come into being willingly or unwillingly.”  They said, “We have come willingly.”

“Really?” the boy was finally realizing something was taking shape here.  His thoughts were coalescing like the primordial smoke as it formed into solid material.  He looked down again and read, “Researchers think that by around one microsecond, or so, the universe had cooled enough for the first protons and neutrons to form, and things began changing as the universe expanded and cooled.”

“Ahhh,” the wise man said knowingly, “there is an ayah for this also.  Surah 51 ayah 47 says, “and the heaven, We constructed with strength and indeed We are its Expander.”

“We are its Expander,” the boy repeated. “That’s the word used? Expander?”

“Yes,” the wise man replied, not commenting, but letting it sink in.

Now it was the boys turn, “Subhan Allah.”

Eager to see what the Qur’an held next, the boy read on, “300 million years after the Big Bang the first stars began shining.  They came together through gravity to form galaxies leading to real structure in the universe.”

“That must have been something to see!” the wise man sighed.

The boy sat back then and looked up.

“Yeah,” was all he could muster.

“Our Lord spoke of this too in the Qur’an,” the wise man continued, “In surah 37 ayah 6 Allah says, “We have indeed decked the lower heaven with beauty in the stars…”

As the sun warmed them thoroughly from a place directly above their heads, the boy finished the chapter with a simple, but poignant, statement, “Scientists believe that around 3.8 billion years ago life was woven with thirty or so different molecules which they believe came from some of the most bountiful elements of the universe.  This primordial “soup” of the oceans was the beginning of life on earth as we know it.”

“Right,” the wise man mused, “but they don’t understand how.  The Qur’an said it 1,400 years ago in surah 21 ayah 30, “Have those who disbelieved not considered that the heavens and the earth were a joined entity and We separated them and made from water every living thing. Then will they not believe?”

They sat quietly, feeling the strength of this statement in light of all that had been said on this worn and peeling park bench.  A sadness settled into the boy. He didn’t want to lose this new connection to the resonant truth inside of him. He said, “Will I see you again?”

“Only Allah knows,” was the unshakable reply. 

Part 3: Adam and Hawa Descending - Archeological Facts

The Beginning of Prophethood on Earth

Most, if not all, modern researchers agree that human life began in the area of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Mesopotamia, but almost nothing was known about the logistics of the spread of humans through this area and beyond. Most archeologists and researchers put this information in the context of Stone Age men, finally and miraculously settling down, bringing forward a new reality for humans on earth. As recently as twenty years ago, scientists and researchers thought that farming brought society and religion to the Neolithic Period.  They went on the widely-accepted assumption that Ice Age hunters and gatherers settled down and domesticated wild cereals and animals and progressed from there.  This sudden domestication was viewed as a single event, a sudden flash of genius in an otherwise gray world of stones and animal skins.   They admit that they don’t know how or why this happened at this particular time of around (?) 15,000 BCE to 10,000 BCE, and how these skillfully built structures spread so quickly to the areas around these “first ever” human habitations sites.   The organization and complexity of the structures found has made reevaluating the start of human settlements on earth a necessary task. Adam’s descent to earth is the only rational answer. In the last several years many discoveries have shed light on how our father, Adam, and his children manifested the vast knowledge he came down to earth with. 

The Peopling of the Earth Pre-Flood

The Descent of Adam (?) to 15,000 BCE through Prophet Idris 7000 BCE

The dates of descension above have been determined by studying the Islamic Scholars and by gathering many non-Muslim sources regarding the first human settlements on earth.   These dates are not written in stone, nor are they exact, but the aim is to show the fact that humans started with Adam and spread from there. 

Allah in the Qur’an says about the populating of the earth, and the peoples’ eventual straying from His Oneness:

4:1: “Oh, Humankind, fear your Guardian Lord Who created you from a single person, created out of it his mate, and from them twain scattered like seeds countless men and women…”

6:2: “He it is Who created you from clay and then decreed a stated term for you.”

30:22: “And among His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth and the variations in your language and your colors.”

25:54: “It is He Who has created man from water, then has He established relationships of lineage and marriage, for your Lord has power over all things.”

49:13: “Oh, humankind, We created you from a single pair of a male and female and made you into nations and tribes that you might know each other.”

6:165: “It is He Who has made you the inheritors of the earth.”

51:56: “I have only created jinns and men that they may worship and serve Me.”

16:36: “For We assuredly sent amongst every people a messenger with the command to serve Allah and eschew evil.”

39:65: “But it has already been revealed to you, as it was to those before you, “If you were to join gods with Allah, truly fruitless will be your work in life, and you will surely be among the losers.”

Adam was created from a portion of every color and kind of dirt on this earth, some from valleys, some from mountains, and all the hues in between. The story goes that Adam may have descended to India or Iraq and Hawa may have descended to Jeddah on the Arabian Peninsula.  They began to search for one another and finally reunited on the mountain of Arafat in what is now Saudi Arabia.  Research now shows that they may have migrated north to the Fertile Crescent between the Tigris and Euphrates.  They began to have children and Hawa had 20 sets of twins, and the sets of twins consisted of one boy and one girl. As the twins grew, the boy from one womb would marry a girl from a different womb, thus beginning the many colors of humanity.  Hawa’s twins would have been a rainbow of colors and personalities.  Some people, as we know, seem to be of gold, and others, of tin.  A fact in the academic community which is quietly disregarded is how quickly these twins would have multiplied and populated our world before 7000 BCE.  A hadith says that there were ten generations between Adam and Nuh, so there may have been seven generations between Adam and Idris. In the genetic search for “Adam” through modern-day techniques for tracing DNA, the conclusions found in this world-wide study seemed correct.  All people came from one source and then spread out, but the timeline given in the study, 30,000 BCE, seems too early.  Yes, as was spoken about, there were species on earth then, but they may or may not have been human.  Again, the assumption of Stone Age creatures finally settling down has broadened the scope a little far.  The geneticist in this study actually traced the male “Y” chromosome all the way back to its origins, Adam, but it’s possible that their timeline needs some adjusting.

Adam, fashioned by Allah’s own hand, was no caveman.  He was a thinking, feeling, intelligent human being.   Again, life spans were longer then, so we can only get a rough estimate, but here is a chart of the possible numbers of Adam’s progeny we are talking about:

Let’s say that Hawa’s twins have ten children each: 1st generation: 10 x 10 =100; they each have ten: second generation: 100 x 10 = 1,000; third generation: 1,000 x 10 = 10,000; fourth generation: 10,000 x 10 = 100,000; fifth generation: 100,000 x 10 = 1,000,000; sixth generation: 1,000,000 x 10 = 10,000,000; seventh generation: 10,000,000 x 10 = 100,000,000, and so on.  You can see how quickly this could happen, only seven generation later.  

Section 7: The Pre-Dynastic Pharaohs of Egypt

Semitic/Sumerian

We would like to build, step by step, the post-flood history of this enduring country of Egypt, much as the pyramids were build stone by stone, beginning with Idris in 7000 BCE and then Ham and his sons’ descent there around 3600 BCE or so, until we reach the time of Ibrahim and the tyrant king, around 1900 BCE.

So, first, a short reminder of the history pre-flood of Egypt. Around 7000 BCE, Idris was forced to leave Babylon and so brought his vast knowledge of astronomy, mathematics, farming, irrigation, and the gift of writing to Egypt. When we speak about the time of Idris and all that he brought to civilization there, we tend to forget that it is believed that he spent 300 years with his great grandfather Adam, and as it is told in the Qur’an in 2:31-33 that Adam was given the names of everything.  Would Adam not pass on this knowledge to his children and grandchildren?  Idris carried a great treasure with him from Babylon to the Land of the Nile.

Many in Egypt believe that Prophet Idris and the legend of Osiris were the same person.  Mythology and idolatry took over as time wore on and Idris became the god Osiris, Lord of the Underworld.  The description of Osiris has some interesting monotheistic components to it, so perhaps these components and The Book of the Dead are prophetic remnants turned shirk over many thousands of years. 

 Researchers have discovered the oldest known pre-flood agricultural settlement in Egypt, Fayoum, just south of Cairo.  Seven thousand years ago, 5000 BCE, this village had clay floors and hearths. They also found remains of domestic wheat, barley, pigs, sheep, and goats that were imported from the Middle East or Turkey, another off-shoot of the first settlements there.

There were post-flood settlements that may have been the moving south of the sons of Ham.  We have already established that Nuh’s sons repopulated Mesopotamia and the surrounding area and were thriving there.   Around 3600 BCE the Hamites went south and settled on the banks of the Nile river.

The Egyptians and Nubians were Hamite, from Ham, and the Egyptian language was Hamite/Semitic.  Ham would have spoken a type of Semitic, as the original language brought to earth by Adam is believed to be Semitic, the language of revelation.  This is what would have been passed down to Nuh. Khamism, the language of Egypt was from West Asia with Semitic roots and implies at least two prior stages to it. With the advent of this settling by the Hamites post-flood, the society grew.  Scholars of old said that there were obvious traces before 3000 BCE of tribes and cities as new-born nationalities.  The Badarian culture, one of the oldest, flourished by the Nile and they, and the many cultures after them, contributed to the rich Egyptian culture. They would have brought with them from Mesopotamia sun-dried bricks, the use of arches, and copper working, and unfortunately the worship of idols.

 In the era before the first pharaoh, Menes, there is a vital connection with ancient Asiatic (Mesopotamian) life through ideas and religious worship passed forward.

The point is that the pre-dynastic pharaohs were Sumerian and Semitic.  Analysis of ancient languages and religions proves the unity of human civilization at one point in time, but the swerving away from monotheism began a downward spiral of pagan worship and tyranny of leadership.  In 3000 BCE, the early dynastic period began with Menes or Narmer, as some call him.  He was the first to unite upper and lower Egypt.  Even at that early date, the kings believed they were gods, as did their subjects. Trade increased during this period, as did the building of projects like mastabas, stone slabs, mummification, and luxurious spending on art and culture.  This series of Pharaohs, tyrannical, believing in their invincibility, lavish and domineering, set the stage for Ibrahim’s entrance into their country years later. 

Division of Time in Egyptian History

Short Synopsis of the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms

2686 BCE to 2125 BCE – Old Kingdom (3rd to 6th dynasty)

Facts: Old Kingdom was called “Age of the Pyramids”. The king was a strong leader, but drought and famine weakened this kingdom to its downfall. Its capital was Memphis.

2126 BCE to 2054 BCE – Intermediate Period

(Ibrahim was at the transition of these two)

2055 BCE to 1650 BCE – Middle Kingdom (11th to 14th dynasty)

Facts: Middle Kingdom was called the “Classical Age” and the “Period of Unification”. The capital was moved to Thebes.

1651 BCE to 1549 BCE – Intermediate Period

1550 BCE to 1070 BCE – New Kingdom (18th to 20th dynasty)

Facts: 18th dynasty was the height of power for Egypt.  In the New Kingdom, many lands were conquered, the Temple of Luxor was built, and Queen Hatshepsut ruled for a time.

Part 1: The Origin of the Americas-The Olmecs, the Dogon of Africa, and the Native Americans

The Cover-Up Lasting Millennia

“The Olmec civilization prospered in Mesoamerica from 1200 BCE to 400 BCE and is generally considered the forerunner of all subsequent Mesoamerican cultures such as the Maya and Aztecs.”  This is a paraphrasing of a definition of the Olmecs, but they were much more than this. They were a formative part of our culture, pre-flood, on this continent, as their ascendants, the children of Adam, began arriving around 13,000 BCE. Post-flood, the civilization called the Olmecs were skilled in farming, hydraulics, and irrigation around 3000 BCE. They were writing numbers with dots and dashes, and the first villages in La Venta in Tabasco, Mexico were egalitarian, the land was held communally, and the social structure was strong.  Around 1900 BCE the Olmecs refined the social and economic structure, and by 1300 BCE they had what was termed a “clearly stratified society”.  By 1200 BCE, the Olmecs had communities which looked a lot like the older cities of Mesopotamia, with a Great Pyramid or Temple, a central plaza, a designated religious area, burial tombs, and domestic quarters.  They also had many statues and complex art, and their communities had running water and proper drainage, much like what was described in the ancient Indus Valley.  Their calendars were lunar, and based on the twelve-month year, as Allah had commanded. They were builders of pyramids and burial mounds, and a connection to the “Mound Builders of Ohio” will be made in a later chapter. Cyrus Thomas, 1880 Director of the Eastern Mound Division of the Smithsonian said back then, “There was a race of mound builders in America distinct from the American Indians.  They were short Africans who built subterranean mound homes in the Americas, some with large stone corbel-vaulted ceilings like the one in the Great Pyramid of Egypt.”  A corbel is a bracket or weight-carrying dome, beak-shaped, and this same architecture was found in Mesopotamia before 3,000 BCE.  Could Ham, son of Nuh, have brought this design to Egypt with him when he descended south from Mesopotamia before 3600 BCE?

The Olmec Heads, discovered in Mexico and Central America in the nineteenth century, were an incongruous find, something to be marveled at, but the meaning of these massive statues of unknown origin needed to be kept at bay because this discovery could turn all that we knew about the peopling of the Americas on its ear.  Archeologists currently use them as a way of studying the Olmecs, but when obvious comparison is done to the African and Chinese Civilizations, a new theory emerges for the origin of the Americas.  

 With many researchers clinging onto the theory of Neanderthal to Human, the story is repeated of a movement of people from Russia to Alaska over the Bering Straits Ice Bridge in 11,000 BCE and down to North America, and subsequently further down to Meso or Middle America. However, the newest theory is that the Ice Bridge collapsed before 12,000 BCE.  Gavin Menzies, author of “Who Discovered America”, comments on this supposed journey over the ice bridge.  He asked the experts who were well-versed on the Bering Straits, and they said that it was impossible that the peopling of the Americas happened this way.  First, it was so long, over one-thousand miles, and there was nothing to sustain them, no wood along the way to build fires and melt ice for drinking water, and any of the plants brought by them would have frozen in a short time.  There was no way to fish or hunt on this desolate stretch. How could this frozen tundra support the known evidence for live chickens from Asia to Peru? No, they concluded, they had to have been brought by sea, either over the Pacific or Atlantic Oceans.  We know that the Africans were master shipbuilders, and the African style of reed boats are still made in South America today, with little change in the design over the millennia. The researchers have studied the hookworm (intestinal parasite) infestations found in the areas of Central and South America. These hookworms came before 5000 BCE, but they could not have survived over frozen land.  The larvae need to have warm, moist soil to drop into and develop, and then they infect the humans from there.  Again, they had to come by sea to the Americas.  The plausibility of ancient travel is shown by over six thousand instances of ancient indigenous plants around the world that have been spread to other nations.

So, now there is a general interest in how the area of the Americas did get populated. We know through the archaeological digs that there were many settlements in the Americas from the time of Adam’s children to the Great Flood, but post-flood, Olmec Head characteristics share an uncanny resemblance to Black African and Asian features, suggesting that the Africans and Chinese made the trip across the Atlantic and Pacific to populate this area of Central America. Armed with the knowledge passed down from Adam and his children to Nuh, they created sophisticated cultures throughout North, South, and Central America. 

Part 2: Suleiman, the Prophet and Al-Aqsa

There is a hadith in Riyad-us-Saliheen which states:

“Narrated Abu Hurairah (ra), “Allah’s Messenger ﷺ said, “The Bani Israel were ruled by the prophets.  When one Prophet died, another succeeded him.  There will be no prophet after me.  The Caliphs will come after me, but they will be quite large in number.”

Suleiman inherited prophethood and kingship from his father, but not his wealth.  It has been confirmed from more than one source, by many companions, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “We do not bequeath (pass on) our property to anyone.  What we leave is given in charity.”  Another version says, “We, the community of Prophets, are not inherited.”  One of the reasons given for this is that “the life of this world is of too little value”.

This didn’t matter to Suleiman, as he was gifted things from Allah that no one else was given.  He made a dua for three things:  That he would be able to judge according to Allah’s Will, that he would be given a unique kingdom, and that anyone who made the intention to pray in the mosque that he built, called Al Aqsa, would leave with no sins on him, like a newborn baby.  Allah gifted him this.

 The land around Al-Aqsa had been sacred from the time Allah created it.   The story was told earlier of the exile of Yaqoob, how he laid down to rest his head on a rock and had the dream of a ladder to Heaven. When he awoke, he oiled the rock so he could find it again and vowed to build a place of worship for Allah on that very spot, which he did.

Suleiman, 700 years later, rebuilt and expanded Al Aqsa, the masjid of Yaqoob. Suleiman’s Temple, the Jewish name for it, was, in fact, a palace and masjid built around 950 BCE.  This brilliant king and prophet used the most advanced technology of his time, and employed the Giblites, Phoenician shipbuilders, to make stone squares and assist in the building process.  He had power over the jinn, and the jinn were also his builders, these world travelers and beyond, and they were quick and strong in the completion of their tasks.  The masjid contained impressive architecture, and incredible pieces of art.  The entrance was made completely of glass.

 Many people get this masjid and the Dome of the Rock in the same complex confused, but the Dome of the Rock near Umar’s Masjid, was not built until the 7th century CE.

Suleiman’s masjid was destroyed in 597 BCE by a king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar.  Ezra and Nehemiah (Jerimiah), priests of Jerusalem, rebuilt the masjid in 515 BCE, but then it was used by the successors of the conqueror Alexander the Great in 167 BCE as a heathen (idolatrous) temple.  It had been restored by King Herod of Isa’s time, from 17 BCE to 29 CE, until Titus destroyed most of it in 70 CE.  The Western Wall, called the Wailing Wall by the Jews, is the only part left, and they claim to be digging for Suleiman’s treasure under it, in turn causing damage to Al-Aqsa which is connected. 

The Qur’an says in 17:4 that the temple, a replica pictured above, was demolished both times because of the sins of Bani Israel:

“And We decreed for the Children of Israel in the Book, that twice would they do mischief on the earth and be elated with mighty arrogance, and twice would they be punished!”

Nebuchadnezzar and Titus seemed to have fulfilled this ayah.